


Night-time Secrets

by Icka M Chif (mischif)



Series: Bunnymund Holmes [11]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Late Night Conversations, M/M, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 17:26:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2740847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischif/pseuds/Icka%20M%20Chif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Tell me something you’ve never told anyone before." Jack’s voice is soft in the glow of candlelight.</p>
<p>References to events in <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/810090">Waltzing Matilda</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night-time Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted on Tumblr](http://ickaimp.tumblr.com/post/52365945232/bunny-holmes-night-time-secrets)
> 
> Historical Note: Passports weren’t commonly used in the UK and Europe until WWI (1914-17), this arc of the fic is taking place around 1891.

* * *

"Tell me something you've never told anyone before." Jack's voice is soft in the glow of candlelight. He’s stretched out on the bed next to Bunny, all loose limbs and sleepy contentedness.

“No one else, hmm?” Bunny muses, making a thoughtful sound as he comes up and discards several ideas. State secrets would bore Jack, jewels might be interesting, but the night feels soft, for meant for secrets and confidences. They’re both on the verge of sleep, curled up together in Bunny’s bed, the only point of contact between them their tangled fingertips that Jack is idly playing with.

“Me parents named me ‘Aster’.” He settles on.

Jack blinks at him, his expression losing some of the peaceful laxness, growing sharp in confusion and contemplation. “Bunnymund Holmes.” He says, the corners of his mouth briefly creasing down. “That’s the name on your identity papers, I’ve seen them.”

“Aye.” Bunny agrees with a quirk of his lips and a small nod. “When North and I first met, we didn’t ask each other’s names. I look like a ‘Bunny’, and he is from the very far North. So that is what we called each other.”

“And ‘Holmes’?” Jack props himself up so his head is almost level with Bunny’s.

Bunny sighs. “Manny.”

Something like comprehension and annoyance crosses Jack’s face before it pools into something neutral. Bunny reaches a hand over, poking the tip of one claw against the corner of Jack’s mouth, dragging it up into a parody of a smile. Jack makes an annoyed sound, batting Bunny’s hand away and Bunny retracts it with a small grin, pleased when Jack gives him an amused smirk.

He likes Jack’s smiles, the real ones, not the polite masks.

“It was one o’ his mice.” Bunny continues. The ‘Man in the Moon’ has several servants, Lunar Moths and Mice as his hands, robots as his guards, and moonbeams for his eyes. “North’s and mine adventures had reached his ear, and he extended an invitation ta London when the battalions we were hangin’ out with left. But fer that, we needed papers.” 

“Passports.” Jack extrapolates. They were getting increasingly common, although still not needed for travel between countries.

Bunny nods. “Fer that, we needed full names.” He’d been loathed to use the name his parents had given him, it seemed like it belonged to another person, someone he wasn’t anymore.

North’s expression at the time had been similar to Bunny’s. “The mouse hadn’t been impressed that we didn’t seem ta have formal names, and asked what North’s father’s name was.”

Jack’s eyebrow quirks. “I thought North didn’t know who his parents were.”

He hadn’t known that Jack knew that about North, it wasn’t common knowledge. The swordsman had grown up wild like a wolf in his youth, before eventually joining humanity. “Yeah.” He agrees. “The mouse wanted to know ‘What Son’ didn’t know his own father’s name.”

“North Wat-son.” Jack echoes dryly, plopping down on the bed.

“Yup.” Bunny smirks. North’s full name, as given to him by the band of Cossacks he’d ridden with in his youth, was ‘Nicholas Saint North’, but that was North’s secret to share. Although by the ‘Nicky’ that Tooth sometimes called North, he was fairly certain that North had told his wife it.

“And ‘Holmes’?” Jack asks, waving a hand in his direction.

“No Home.”

The mouse had taken Bunny’s lack of home the same as North’s lack of knowing his parentage, and used it for his last name.

He thinks the loss of his family and Clan is a wound that is never going to entirely heal. It’s not longer the crippling gaping maw it once was, but it never stops hurting every time he’s reminded.

Jack’s eyes are very round and grave as Bunny’s words sink in. Without a word, Jack slides his hand closer to Bunny, not quite touching, but letting Bunny know that it was there if he wanted the contact.

Bunny puts his hand on top of Jack’s cold fingers, giving them a light squeeze. “‘Bunnymund’ was ta make it sound more official. ‘Mund’ is an old word fer ‘Protector’.”

“‘Rabbit Protector’, huh?” Jack smiles fondly at him. “Suits you.”

“Ta.” Bunny ducks his head. Jack knows Bunny’s not actually a lagomorph and seems to take great amusement in the realisation that the vast majority of people don’t.

“‘Aster Bunnymund Holmes’.” Jack says quietly, Bunny’s name rolling almost reverently off Jack’s tongue and Bunny shivers at the feel of it. It feels good, safe, when Jack says it. Jack grins. “I like it.”

Bunny scoots down so his head is on the pillow next to Jack’s, leaning over to kiss Jack. It’s still a little strange, the feel of another’s mouth against his own, but he enjoys it, the intimacy of it, the little noises, and the way Jack smells and tastes from this close.

Jack makes a little hum as they pull apart, both of them pleasantly lethargic. They settle down in the bed, getting comfortable. Jack’s lower body temperature doesn’t make snuggling in their sleep terribly comfortable for either of them, but they’ll still wake up in the morning with at least some of their limbs tangled, clinging in their sleep.

Jack manages to blow out the candle from where he lays, casting the room in muted darkness, the silver moonlight creeping in from behind the curtains. Bunny’s pretty sure he spies a moonbeam or two sneak in, checking in on them before wandering out.

“Hey.” Bunny whispers as he feels himself drift off, comfortable and sleepy. “What’s somethin’ ya never told anyone before?”

Jack’s breathing is already slow and even, and Bunny figures that he must have already fallen asleep. Or is doing a well enough job of faking it to avoid the question. Either is likely. Bunny hums in return, closing his eyes and succumbing to slumber.

It’s only as sleep starts to pull him under that Jack speaks up, so softly that Bunny thinks he might be imagining it.

“I’m not really alive.”

-fin-


End file.
